20.10.2010
Two open letters
The sectarian opponents of the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920 state their case
A flurry of opposition was sparked by the announcement of the British Socialist Party and the Communist Unity Group[1] that they were to form a single Communist Party at a unity convention on July 31 1920.
The disaggregating sectarian rump of the Socialist Labour Party and the increasingly befuddled Workers’ Socialist Federation of the charismatic and erratic Sylvia Pankhurst began to define themselves by pig-headed opposition to the tide of history.
Both sects had previously been part of the unity negotiations, but now - alienated from the whole process - the logic of events posed a stark choice. Either break from sectarianism or take a harder and harder political stance against unity, as it deepened and moves to achieve it gathered pace.
The SLP, for instance, had set its face against communist unity because the BSP had refused to agree that the future CPGB must never - as a matter of iron principle - seek affiliation to the Labour Party. The WSF concurred, but had an additional shibboleth - the granite commitment to boycott the bourgeois parliament in every conceivable circumstance.
The two open letters below express the views of these anti-unity organisations. In a way, they complement each other, though they are rather different.
First, we have the pompous prose of the ‘Open letter to SLP members’ from the group’s leader, James Clunie. (Contrast Clunie’s windy rhetoric with the calm, no-nonsense and businesslike statements of the BSP executive committee, in particular its rejoinder to the Amsterdam sub-bureau of the Communist International’s leftist intervention.[2])
Second, there was the rather more politically coherent ‘Open letter to the delegates of the Unity Convention’ from the mischievously misnamed Communist Party (British Section of the Third International). This was, in fact, neither a Communist Party nor the British section of the Third International. The title was actually the nom de guerre that the WSF had claimed for itself after June 19 1920 in a dishonest - and slightly sad - attempt to upstage the soon-to-be-formed CPGB.
To the SLP
The Socialist No22, Vol 14, June 3 1920
Comrades
False impressions bring disastrous results when they are given free play, because herein the building up of the past is surrendered with all its strength and possibilities, thereby courting disaster, to the seeming consolidation forms that are evolving into actual existence. Such a position confronts you, comrades, at this present moment.
I refer in particular to the question of unity. And might I say frankly at this point that the question of unity does not embrace what my or your feelings are in respect of comrades Clarke, Paul, etc.[3] Personally, they may be admirable fellows, but policy and comradeship are not a dual character ...
The vindication of the continued existence of the SLP, just as it has been up to now, will be its correct analysis and interpretation of the economic, social and political forces which are bound to impress upon us the practicability of suiting our policy to harmonise with our outlook. At the moment the elements do not exist for unity. Hence only by compromise can we have a united (?) Communist Party. Such a party would continue to contain within itself the very conflicting factions that today, before its formation, compels the need for compromise in order to bring it into being. A party such as the proposed new Communist Party is not a practical proposition, because the vital question to the SLP is the cardinal cause of disagreement. No number of conferences or national conventions can settle that question. Unity is not a question of window-dressing, talk and advertisement. It is principle as expressed in policy. Above all remember, comrades, that cheap phrases or popular names or subsidised delegations do not even possess the rudiments of principle and unity. A real strong man is he who can stand alone in the belief that his conduct is correct.
It is not a matter of personality, but belief. And do we not find in such a case that belief shows the character of the man when he adheres true to his reading of a situation because it is in the interests of revolution ... I say, down with all the self-imposed leaders! Give us men - good, sound, stanch and true, solid in organisation, united in purpose, clear in objective, then we may have unity - not before. Have we not learned that the really great Lenin, who, to his immortal credit, always thinks in terms of revolution, has on many occasions occupied the glorious position of Ibsen’s great man by standing alone in his reading of situations, in determining tactics and policy.[4] With him the ideal is the ultimate, the practical and the present problem. Here we find expressed real strength, unity, solid revolutionary purpose.
Comrades of the SLP, yours is a problem of a similar character to those which have been solved many times by the ingenious and great president of the Russian republic. If we are content to follow men in preference to principles then we are weak and lack revolutionary character. If we are able to take action consistent with our beliefs, then we will insist on the will of the party without in any way violating the first essentials of comradeship. The political situation is of such a character in this country that a strong body like the SLP is absolutely essential to safeguard the revolutionary development of the working class movement.
Real revolutionary unity is the combination of the working class. Mass action is meaningless without that form of strength and consciousness. The only logical form of unity - namely, the combination of parties or individuals having a common line of action - seems to me inevitable, just as the proposed united (?) Communist Party cannot mean anything else but nominal fusion. If the question of Labour Party affiliation is the vital question, then the very existence of the SLP is the proper answer. The SLP branch which is not decided on this matter does not appreciate where it stands. And I am sure that the loyal SLP does appreciably know its party purpose and function. Know thyself. All wisdom centres there.”[5] ...
One more attempt at disintegration, no doubt, will soon be made, but our former wisdom will again show itself, and the SLP will continue to live even in greater strength until the real unity of the revolutionary period shows itself.
James Clunie
To the delegates of the Unity Convention
The Workers’ Dreadnought July 31 1920
Dear comrade
Some of you may naturally ask why we are not represented at the Unity Conference. For this reason. It is useless to say that the differences between ourselves and those who have summoned the Unity Conference are purely tactical, and that, therefore, we ought to sink our differences and unite with them. Tactical differences, when sufficiently vital, become differences of principle, rendering united action impossible.
We refuse to run candidates for parliament because:
1. That tactic entails grave dangers of the movement lapsing into reformism;
2. Any attempt to use the parliamentary system encourages among the workers the delusion that leaders can fight their battles for them. Not leadership, but mass action is essential, now that the last struggle is approaching;
3. What we want is not class talk, but class war;
4. Under present conditions in this country, any participation in parliamentism confuses the issue of the class struggle, wastes the energies of the revolutionary workers and delays full adhesion to the soviet system;
5. Today parliament is nothing but an instrument of bourgeois domination, a warder-off of revolution, a safety valve through which the revolutionary urge escapes in wind. Today parliament cannot be the arena of the revolutionary struggle;
6. Parliamentism as a form of government has never secured, and can never secure, self-government by the masses.
We reject affiliation to the Labour Party because:
1. In constitution and actual working the Labour Party is a committee of leaders who divert the revolutionary will of the workers into parliamentary and reformist channels;
2. The trade union leaders of parliamentarians who control the Labour Party have, through their bourgeois associations, acquired a middle class mentality which inevitably makes them support the tactics of class collaboration in place of the tactics of class war;
3. The Labour Party is based on parliamentary bourgeois democracy, whereas the Communist Party is out for working class dictatorship ...
Comrade, this party has been formed in the firm conviction that in Britain today there is a higher proportion of revolutionaries than existed in France of 1789. We do not believe that our immediate task is to make communists, but rather to organise on uncompromising lines those who already hold communist views. This is not to say that the work of communist propaganda is not likewise of supreme importance. But, pending the revolutionary crisis, what is needed is not construction, but destruction. We must destroy bourgeois ideas and values, bourgeois morality, the bourgeois standards which create the mental and moral slavery of the proletariat.
In so far as we have constructive work before the revolution, this can only be to establish independent proletarian standards and ideals. Hence our uncompromising programme. We will have nothing to do either with bourgeois or with social democratic parties, organisations and institutions. We call upon all genuinely Bolshevik groups and individuals to rally to the standard we have raised, to share in the up-building of our party, to join with us in the spearhead of the revolution.
Yours for revolutionary communism
The national organising council
Notes
- Weekly Worker, September 30 2010.
- Weekly Worker September 23 2010.
- The reference is to those SLPers who had broken with the sectarian leadership of their organisation. In particular William Paul, who, along with Arthur MacManus and Tom Bell, had originally composed the SLP’s negotiating team in the unity discussions, but from April 1920 had effectively turned their backs on the internal politics of the SLP to form the Communist Unity Group. While this helped break the deadlock between the participating organisations, it is arguable that a more rigorous engagement in the SLP’s increasingly fraught internal life could have seen more of its comrades won to the soon-to-be-born CPGB - see Weekly Worker September 30 2010.
- Plekhanov, the ‘father of Russian Marxism’, wrote this of the Norwegian playwright Henrick Ibsen (1828-1906): “In petty bourgeois society, men whose ‘spirits’ are driven to ‘revolt’ must necessarily be exceptions to the general rule. Very often such men proudly regard themselves as aristocrats, and they do resemble aristocrats in two respects: they are superior spiritually, just as the aristocracy is superior socially because of its privileged position; and their interests are so remote from - even inimical to - the interests of the majority that they are as far removed from the latter as is the aristocracy. The only difference is that the real historical aristocracy dominated society during its heyday; while the intellectual aristocracy [has] practically no influence upon the petty bourgeois society of which it is a product. Having no social power, these spiritual ‘aristocrats’ remain isolated individuals, and in compensation, devote themselves all the more zealously to the cultivation of their personality. “Their social environment makes individualists of them, and then they make a virtue of necessity. They make a cult of individualism, believing that what is really a result of their isolation in petty bourgeois society is an indication of their personal strength. As crusaders against triviality and mediocrity, these men often appear as pathetic individuals of broken spirit. But truly magnificent figures are to be found among them - certainly Ibsen” (www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1908/xx/ibsen.htm).
- The quote is from Edward Young (1683-1765), an English poet and dramatist best remembered for the blank verse poem, ‘Night thoughts’.